1. Field
The present disclosure relates to network management. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a method and system for creating a converged wireless local area network (WLAN).
2. Related Art
Increasing demand for “anytime, anywhere” connectivity has made wireless networks a popular delivery medium for the Internet. Wireless user devices, equipped with increasing processing power and media play-back capability, have brought an increasing demand for wireless bandwidth. As a result, equipment vendors race to build intelligent wireless network control devices with versatile capabilities, such as roaming, to utilize wireless bandwidth and manage users efficiently. However, the number of users managed by each such device cannot grow infinitely. It is limited by bandwidth, processing capacity, power consumption, and design complexity, to name a few factors. Furthermore, wireless network controllers with high capability are usually more complex and expensive. More importantly, because an overly large and complex system often does not provide economy of scale, simply increasing the size and capability of a controller may prove economically unviable due to the increased cost and decreased efficiency.
Meanwhile, layer-2 (e.g., Ethernet) switching technologies continue to evolve. More routing-like functionalities, which have traditionally been the characteristics of layer-3 (e.g., Internet Protocol or IP) networks, are migrating into layer-2. Notably, the recent development of the Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) protocol allows Ethernet switches to function more like routing devices. TRILL overcomes the inherent inefficiency of the conventional spanning tree protocol, which forces layer-2 switches to be coupled in a logical spanning-tree topology to avoid looping. TRILL allows routing bridges (RBridges) to be coupled in an arbitrary topology without the risk of looping by implementing routing functions in switches and including a hop count in the TRILL header.
Nonetheless, these layer-2 technological advances have yet to benefit the deployment of intelligent wireless network controllers.